1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)-based wireless network. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of generating and managing connection identifiers (CID) for supporting an IPv6 multicast in a wireless network based on IEEE 802.16 and a network interface using the method.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been a lot of research conducted with respect to broadband wireless access (BWA). BWA is desirable because it can provide broadband communications in a wireless environment. The research has led the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to create the IEEE 802.16 specification, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. The IEEE 802.16 is a broadband wireless access specification. As a result of the creation of the IEEE 802.16, BWA research has been focused on broadband communications using IEEE 802.16. More specifically, IEEE 802.16 is a standard for a wireless air interface used for a wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN).
Also, IPv6 is a next generation Internet protocol that has been developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to overcome the problems of IPv4. IPv4 is version of Internet protocol that is being currently used on the Internet. Both the IPv4 and IPv6 standards are hereby incorporated by reference. In order to apply IPv6 to an IEEE 802.16 wireless network, multicasting for link locals is required when performing neighbor discovery for a plurality of nodes which are located in a particular link. Neighbor discovery is an important process in the operation of IPv6. Nodes use neighbor discovery to determine the link-layer addresses for neighbors known to reside on attached links. A node includes a mobile station and a router which are located in a corresponding link local.
As described above, in IPv6, neighbor discovery has to be performed. Specifically, in order to transmit data to a destination from a mobile station, a base station has to know the link layer address of another node to which the message received from the mobile station will be transmitted. Looking for the link layer address of the other node to which the message will be transmitted is known as neighbor discovery.
In order to perform neighbor discovery in a wireless network environment based on IEEE 802.16, multicast is required to be supported. Also, when a wireless network environment is based on IPv6, a multicast Internet protocol (IP) address for each group and a multicast media access control (MAC) address are required to be generated/mapped for address resolution of the multicast IP address and the MAC address. However, the MAC address is no longer supported in a wireless network environment based on IEEE 802.16. Accordingly, a new system for identifying a node of a MAC layer, for IPv6 neighbor discovery, is needed so that a wireless network based on IEEE 802.16 may support IPv6. A system for identifying a node of a new MAC layer is essential in performing address auto-configuration or duplicate address detection. Address auto-configuration or duplicate address detection is required to be supported by IPv6-based IEEE 802.16 wireless networks.